Main menu

Past Work

Live Action Role-Playing (larp)

I consider live action role playing to be an ancient, global art form. It began in the early days of humanity, when shamans would wear animal skins and re-enact the Hunt. Larp, to me, is essentially improvisational acting where everyone participating is both actor and audience and have a certain amount of agency to determine where the narrative goes, that is, through their actions they can decide when, or if, Hamlet kills Claudius.

I think that larp (an unfortunate name that I have learned to accept) is the rare art form that can exercise a person’s physical, mental, and emotional aspects. I think that we are in a larp Renaissance now, as the individual groups who play-pretend begin to communicate with one another, share information and ideas, and collaborate to make truly influential larps that have a profound impact not only on individuals, but on society as a whole.

To me, not all larps are fantasy-oriented foam weapon weekend camping games. In fact, I don’t consider all larps to be games by Salen & Zimmerman’s definition. I do consider all of the following to be live action role playing experiences: mock trials, model United Nations clubs, military simulations, disaster simulations, some psychodrama therapies, the Stanford Prison Experiment, playing cops and robbers in the backyard or a tea party with friends and stuffed animals in the bedroom. These are all facets of a thrilling, complex, diverse, and powerful art form.

I have been involved with larp since grade school. In 2006 I realized how widespread larp was, and only in the last few years have I attempted to make larp design and production my vocation: I founded and ran Seekers Unlimited, a nonprofit (501c3) corporation that made 17 educational larps for four schools in the Los Angeles area from 2011-2015. I also co-founded the defunct Live Game Labs, a loose collection of SoCal based larpwrights. I currently serve as vice-president of The Game Academy, a 501c3 nonprofit that develops and uses role-playing games to educate life-long learners.

Fallen Stars at the Charity Sale, a staged adaptation of the Norwegian larp “Fallen Stars” for the Hollywood Fringe Festival (2017) (link)

Movies

At UCLA I took as many film and screenwriting classes as a non-film major could take. I also interned for Roger Corman’s company Concorde/New Horizons. After I received my degree in 1993, I made the fateful decision to attend graduate school rather than face my “whopping” $6,000 student loan.

I moved to Chicago to attend Columbia College‘s Master of Fine Arts in Film & Video program. Besides making movies, I also worked for Learn Television, an educational video game company that later became Jellyvision, makers of the popular trivia game You Don’t Know Jack!, Screen magazine (for the weekly print periodical as a staff writer), Terraglyph Interactive Studios as a staff video game designer, and finally a video rental store (customer service representative).

I was also making short films during this time. One of my early school films, The Outsider, coupled with an email request I made to Andrew Migliore of Beyond Books, helped catalyze the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival® in Portland, Oregon (full story here).

After being laid off by Terraglyph with 9/10 of the company and a long dreary spring season, Kirsten and I returned to Los Angeles, and we have been here ever since. I expect to be cremated with my grad school student loan debt.

In Los Angeles I worked in various capacities in the movie business: as a non-union production manager for student films, as an assistant to writer/director Charlie Carner, as the office manager of Next Wave Films, as the assistant production accountant on the movie I’m Losing You, as a freelance editor, cameraman, and production assistant.

I became the Columbia College Alumni coordinator for the west coast, a part time position, but later left to make movies. My imdb credits are listed here.

In 2010 I started a franchise of the long-running Portland-based H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival® in Los Angeles. I have been the organizer, manager, producer, programmer, etc., from 2010 until 2016.

In 2003 I received the “Howie” lifetime achievement award for contributions to Lovecraft cinema and culture from the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival® in Portland. I looked at it as inspiration to do more, not satisfaction with what has already been done.

You can purchase one of them here or, in the bonus material of this DVD here. The others are out of print…for now.

Unless there is a paycheck attached, I am no longer writing or directing for the screen–nor working any of the other positions, for that matter. If you are interested in my past work or unproduced screenplays, contact me.

Games

I have played and designed games of various types for most of my life. A few of these have been sold commercially:

From March 2009 to February 2013 I blogged about cocktails for Examiner.com. The pay was third world but the perks were princely. Almost all of my articles remained online until the company thankfully folded. The one they cut was this gem, which links to my favorite or most important pieces. I learned a lot in those four years, not the least of which is how to make a good stiff drink. The Liquid Muse also published a few of my original articles.

Miscellaneous

I have performed many other odd jobs over the years: UCLA cafeteria food service supervisor, tutor, KLA disk jockey–I was even lead singer in a band for one rehearsal.